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I’m still trying, and failing, to
adapt to this new climate. Still trying to acclimate to eighty degree
temperatures in January. Southern California is so unlike Long Island where I
made my home for sixty-seven years. But since I tend to be an optimist I see
the value of being able to take a pleasant morning walk in the middle of “winter.” This
early in the morning the air is cool on my skin and the sunshine is bright and
joyful. I’ve become more committed to my daily walks since I got a Fit Bit that
tracks my every step and buzzes my wrist when I don’t hit my goals. But what
has made my morning walks more enticing and enjoyable is my new interest in
audio books. In the past I would walk silently and though I enjoyed the rustle
of dry leaves and the songs of finches somehow those walks seemed boring. I
would set out to resolve some life issue, or plot issue, and end up thinking
mundane thoughts. Now, instead, I listen to inspirational books and poetry read
by David Whyte or Mark Nepo. …

Sometimes a writing prompt can be found right on your own hand and spiced with memories.

MAMA’S
RINGS Mama
and I sat in the VA hospital waiting room waiting for the doctor. The previous
night Mama had a bout of high blood pressure with its typical headache and
shortness of breath. She had gotten it down with her medication but it was time
to get checked out. Normally
the wait to be seen by a medical professional at the VA was long so we had each
brought a book to read but the books lay at our sides and we talked instead. “Is
there anything you want before I get rid of it?” Mama asked. She had always
been a minimalist but in her late 80s she was even more determined to unload
her possessions as she didn’t want to burden my brother and I with having to
deal with them when she was gone. It was a sad conversation but she’d been
preparing us for our parents’ deaths since I was in high school so I had become
a bit inured to the topic. “Not
really,”…

We each remember the day we learned to ride a bicycle without training wheels. It was a feeling of triumph not to be believed. Finally we could venture out into the unknown on our trusted steads and see the world.

The magic thrilled us though in the beginning it was scary to try and balance on only two wheels while steering around corners and speeding down hills. Writing is like that and so is life.

When you write you may need training wheels in the form of craft books and magazines, a community of writers to hold you while you learn to balance, a list of prompts to get you started and perhaps some rituals and routines to ensure a daily writing habit.

Life requires training wheels as well. Some guidance to help navigate the chaotic world while keeping a balance in your daily life. Training wheels offered me a prompt for writing as I remembered back to the day I first rode my bike without training wheels.

I wake before dawn, the air cool and charcoal dark. Dreams are a quickly evaporating haze and I am surrounded by stillness. Just the way I like my days to begin. I rise and head to my writing desk with a glass of warm water, lemon juice and honey. A few sips. I light two candles; one coconut vanilla, the other a pink salt candle holder. I set the timer on my iphone for ten minutes, cradle a pink quartz crystal in the palm of my hand and meditate in the stillness of a new day holding new promises like delicate blooms in a reed basket. Soft chimes on the timer signal it is time to get to work.

I enter my writing zone trying not to predetermine what I'm going to write about. Words flow from the pen, seemingly along a direct trail from heart to hand. It might be a poem, or a childhood reminiscence. It could be a list of things I need to do, or a list of writing and art projects I want to start on. Sometimes it's a musing on the present state of affairs in my heart, my life or in th…

Renee Howard Cassese was born on Long Island on September 8, 1949. She lived in Levittown from the age of four to fourteen, which spanned the years of 1953 to 1963. These were years of such joy and magic that Renee wanted to share them with you. According to her, and her best friend, Emilia, there is no other time or place that afforded such an idyllic childhood. The security and simplicity of that childhood lives within both these women, even now, after over fifty years of friendship. There were many lessons to be learned in the stories of Renee's childhood and she wants to share them with her blog readers.

Renee works as a school administrator, but her love is for writing fiction and poetry and some memoir. She would love to teach women how to write and tell their own stories. Her dream and goal is to be a known published author.

Renee's joys in life are her family, reading, cooking and being outdoors in nature. She loves travel, but mostly travels to visit her sons who live on opposite US coasts.

Renee loves people and the interchange of ideas, but requires many and frequent periods of solitude and silence to stay calm.

She would love to hear your comments about the site, especially from others who grew up in Levittown, or who live there now.